The question of what these sweeteners do to our body -- and by what mechanism -- is far from settled, but this study adds to the realization that looking just at calorie counts, without thinking a little more about the actual ingredients, might not be enough to lead to long-term weight control and health.

When man tampered with nature and uncoupled the sweetness sensory signal from caloric load, a pairing that we adjusted to for thousands of generations, our capacity to know when we had enough was eradicated.